When to Nip and Tuck...

...An Empowerment Lesson

Recovery from being a career soft target has meant playing to my strengths and making allowances for my weaknesses. Being the sensitive-intuitive, silent-observer type, it’s not surprising that I’m wired with an aversion to confrontation. The roots of it extend beyond mere personality type and are tangled in the existential mess from enduring childhood bullying. That, coupled with the shame of never fighting back, have mangled the natural function of my fight or flight reflexes. Most of the time I do neither and simply freeze when it would be appropriate to defend myself.

Even so, I’ve engaged in a few mano a mano scuffles along the way. During extreme cases of antagonism, my gut will suddenly grab the wheel. Suppressed rage comes gushing out like a torrent from a fire hose, splattering the antagonizer against the wall and I’m left feeling a peculiar mix of triumph and remorse.

Those dramatic occasions, which heavily marked my younger years, occur rarely nowadays. What’s more likely to happen now in lieu of an explosion is a silent breaking of the bow - in response to the repeated breaking of the vow – the unspoken code of Golden Rule conduct that should be a part of any good relationship. Which brings me to the recent nip and tuck I decided was in order when a longtime friend I’ll call Terry ambushed me with disrespect in a public forum.

It happened more than a year ago when a disturbing act of gun violence reverberated through every form of media and devastated the nation. Even in a culture that has had to acclimate itself to continual mass shooting headlines, this particular tragedy broke me. I channeled my anguish in a Facebook post that was not a rant, but rather, a plea that centered on (in the absence of larger answers to an epidemic) the simple act of being kinder to one another. Doing so, I reasoned, could be a beginning that had potential to ripple out. A few hours later, I was stunned to see a comment from Terry, savagely belittling my sentiments with a diatribe on guns and politics. It ended with a personal rebuke because I visit Florida each winter, tersely declaring  he ‘won’t set foot in Florida’ until the current governor is out of office.

In all probability he was having a bad day during which someone else set him off. He stumbled upon my post and decided it was the perfect place to unload. Terry’s vitriol had nothing to do with the sentiments of my post but everything to do with a random attack on a soft target.  Choosing the path of least resistance (even if it’s a person to conveniently go off on) is a practice of our lower human nature that’s as typical as it is cowardly. My disappointment in him was profound.

And while it may not sound like relationship-ending material to the naked eye, the truth was, I’d let years of micro-aggressions slide (most of the time) over our 30+ years of camaraderie. By the time the Facebook incident occurred, I’d long since absorbed my limit of shrapnel. I couldn’t move past it. Even knowing no one has ever made me belly-laugh like Terry, and though I love belly-laughing, I could no longer look away from the downsides to our dynamic. I was the listener, he was the talker. I was the empathetic ear when he needed to blow off steam, but he rarely reciprocated. And then there were the rounds of dart-throwing in the guise of humor that stung more than they amused.  I’ve been on a path to heal my past and optimize my present for decades now. The more adept I get at self-respect, the more in-peril my unhealthier relationships become.  The fault-line rupturing for the two of us was inevitable. Once I stopped being the eternally understanding soul who doubled as a comfy mattress to flop down on, natural disintegration set in. It could have played out differently had he reached out to offer remorse and shown a semblance of empathy. The diatribe itself (hurtful as it was) wasn’t the deal-breaker; but rather, the fact that he was too proud to own up to being out of line. A simple solution that’s so out of reach for some.

Since my tolerance for being a substation for shrapnel has reached an all-time low, here are a few of the things I now do instead of volunteering for target practice: I fire toxic people outright; cease and desist with unrewarding and one-sided people-pleasing; exercise my right to use the blocking option on social media; and I no longer volunteer to settle in for an hour-plus session with a ‘friend’ as the free therapist.  If these measures seem harsh, perhaps it’s a little too close to the bone for you. These are simple steps to self-restoration – what’s harsh is allowing myself to be used.

Sure, a punching bag is a terrible thing to be, but the wounds of self-betrayal are the most hurtful of all. And I’ve reached a breaking point with it, as Terry and others have discovered. I own my side of the street for shying away from confrontation and letting things build to the point of no return. No one needs to tell me it’s not ideal, but with my past trauma, my voice box freezes more often than it flows freely…still.

For now, the fact that there is a measurable breaking point equates to big progress for me. During my 20’s and 30’s ‘friends’ could dump on me and impugn with impunity. No more. It might not be the way Hollywood would script it out, but we all have the inalienable right to construct our own ending to any relationship where bad behavior plays a starring role. How the toxic cords are cut can take many forms; there’s no one-method-fits all.

This change in me is likely shocking and confounding for those who understandably assume that I’ll always roll over; always remain silent rather than fight back; and always be the giver, expecting nothing in return. Welp…those days are over, amigos. As mucky as all this is to reveal, I consider it good news. For there would have been a time when bad behavior wouldn’t have registered as a nano-blip on my radar and I’d continue to pretend everything’s just wonderful.

I don’t mean to give the impression my life is filled with malignant variants of weak-willed, frustrated and repressed malcontents who see an easy ambush and take advantage.  I’m actually quite blessed to have friends and acquaintances gracing my world who are kind, giving, respectful, and couldn’t pull a shrapnel attack if they were offered a bountiful bribe. The world is full of good and amazing people – a heightened sense of worth brings more of them into your realm.

And if you’re dealing with buried shrapnel from friendly fire and those who get a kick out of kicking you, take heart:  if an elective-mute who spent her formative years letting kids pummel her verbally and physically can turn the ship around – anyone can. Verbal self-defense for someone like me is not an easy path…it’s often terrifying and gut-churning…but I’m committed to learning the art, one offensive person at a time.  

There’s also a glorious upside to taking shrapnel for a prolonged period: you know when the final shot has been fired. It will be undeniable. And when the curtain finally closes on a poisonous dynamic, that last round of shrapnel, instead of wounding you, gets spun into reverse to vaporize the toxic cord. It’s a beautiful moment of grace, coupled with sweet relief that’s as welcome as a drink of Holy Water to a parched and neglected throat.